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Ko-Kinko And Judging Age


jlawson

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I have seen quite a bit written recently on Ko-Kinko tsuba and judging the quality and age of these tsuba by the color of the material, the oxidation, and the amateur looking work done on them etc. This has really bothered me for some time as classifying things that are Ko-Kinko has elevated their prices and in many case their stature in the collection community. When looking at these pieces the ability for them to be made even today and patination applied is something that is pretty scary to me as a collector and unfortunately easier than one might think. I recently had the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks with Ford Hallam to learn more about patination and tsuba art in general. During the last week of our work together we produced the tsuba you will see below. This was done in a day and half and is a faithful replication of how they were doing the work as well. Everything is hand done including hammering the plate, raising the rim, and the nanako. This piece was done by me ( very much an amateur) and patination, seki-gane, and lead plug added by Ford. 

I actually was able to show this piece to some of the communities tsuba folks this weekend at Tampa and all but one said it was a very old muromachi tsuba. 

The point here is that if this can be done as a one off in a day and a half you better believe that an expert working on something like this for a month could be done to deceive and would be very difficult to tell. This whole experience has given me a very new perspective on the dating of items by the way they "look" and feel. This also brings to focus for me that in order for us to tell exactly how old things are we are going to likely have to employ some type of scientific non-destructive testing. I am sure that at some point the sword certification groups are going to have to employ these methods or risk letting things through that are made to deceive.  

 

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Brian, I was really careful on how I worded that and purposeful to not cause embarrassment for anyone who thought it was older.I have a great amount of respect for many of the people I showed it to and would never want to embarrass them. It would be easy to have this thread move to exposing those who think they are experts etc and extolling how they were fooled but that is not the important part nor the intent of this post. Had I not have been the one who produced this tsuba I would have been fooled myself and would have thought it was much older. That is why this lesson is so important to me because I have seen first hand how these things can be manufactured to look much older than they are.

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Also one other important item that I learned on this journey. For me I have always heard that a trademark etc of Ko-Kinko work was that they were "amateurish" and not what one would expect from later pieces. After going through this process though I am really at odds with that statement. If this was your job day in and day out, your tsuba would not look "amateurish". Mine certainly did because this is my first tsuba but honestly, for a skilled craftsman it does not make sense. These things that pass for Ko-Kinko because they look old and are somewhat crude perhaps they are clever fakes as well or tsuba made by amateurs. It is certainly a scary thought. 

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Mike Yamasaki runs a great kantei session on fittings. In one of these sessions teams were asked to rate fittings. Some were modern and they would fail at shinsa. All found the exercise instructional. 

James thanks for the great presentation of tsuba at Tampa show. This too is a learning experience. 

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Hi James

It was very nice to see you and some of your collection at the Ford get together. You gave me some great pointers re Kinai tsuba

I showed Ford a ko kinko tsuba dated around 1450 and he said he could do exactly what you have produced 

Thanks to your post it makes a lot more sense when he said to me if it looks old doesn't mean it is old and now I see exactly what he means

We chatted about non destructive metal analysis and carbon dating methods that are just being used and tested

Very interesting and potentially worrying  times for collectors and experts

I find it an exciting time and looking forward to some very interesting results

 

 

Grev UK

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From Robert Yellin's yakimono site regarding the famous potter Kato Tokuro:

 

"Another anecdote about Tokuro is probably the greatest potting scandal of twentieth century Japan known as the Einin no Tsubo Scandal. Tokuro prided himself on his ability to reproduce classical pieces so well that not even the experts could tell them apart. To prove his point, in 1937 he made several replicas of Einin period (1293-1299) Heishi, an old Seto sake bottle. It's not clear exactly when, but he broke a few of the pots and buried the shards along with an intact heishi in a medieval kiln site and had them "discovered" during an excavation of the kiln in 1960. (Many say that it was actually Kato's son Okabe Mineo who made the reproductions)

The well-known ceramic authority Fujio Koyama (1900-1975),a friend of Kato's who was on the committee that decided matters of cultural importance, proposed that the recently found heishi be designated as an Important Cultural Property. Kato then revealed his prank to a fuming Koyama who would not believe Kato based on the evidence of the shards. Kato broke that news to a fuming Koyama as well. He had duped the experts, but nonetheless it caused great embarrassment to all involved and both Koyama and Kato resigned from their respective official positions."

 

Good fakes can and have fooled experts in all fields. There are said to be fake and/or doctored Kokuho/Juyo Bunkazai/Juyo Bijutsuhin swords as well. As always, caveat emptor

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I can't help but wonder if a question asked elsewhere in the Tosogu forum needs to be reworded slightly and asked here:

 

What are the objective criteria we currently use to evaluate pre-edo kinko tsuba, regardless of whether we "like" the particular piece under review?

 

Because if there's a concern about "fakery", shouldn't we reexamine what we "know" about the work in question? Especially since that knowledge seems to have been rather effectively challenged...

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The well-known ceramic authority Fujio Koyama (1900-1975),a friend of Kato's who was on the committee that decided matters of cultural importance, proposed that the recently found heishi be designated as an Important Cultural Property. Kato then revealed his prank to a fuming Koyama who would not believe Kato based on the evidence of the shards. Kato broke that news to a fuming Koyama as well. He had duped the experts, but nonetheless it caused great embarrassment to all involved and both Koyama and Kato resigned from their respective official positions."

 

We all see things as we want them to be sometimes (or indeed many times), rather than how things really are :-)

A problem also science has its share of, still these pottery reproductions must have been very good to fool the scholars, and this illustrates Mr. Lawsons piont very well indeed.

The blades out of China are getting "better" too. I wonder what some of them will look like in 10-20 years time if someone really decides to have a serious go at nihonto reproduction...

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James, 

 

You have disclosed the true nature of this tsuba and I presume that you have done this to save the face of those who would have attributed your work to ko-kinko.  This was very considerate of you, thank you  :)

 

I find it very hard to make a comment in this situation, but I would like to point out one big give-away in your tsuba (apart from the rim and the seppa-dai): 

 

Your tsuba is made of copper and not yamagane. That means, that despite all patination effort (very good, by all means) the colour of this tsuba is off in places where the material shines through. I can imagine, though, that it would be easy for someone like Ford to produce a copper alloy similar to yamagane or nigurome.

 

The lead plug is great  :clap: Overall, I think it is a very convincing tsuba, and I must say I like it a lot  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:

 

BTW, what recent publications about ko-kinko are you referring to?  I am very interested in anything that comes out.

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Marius, I am not aware of any new publications but rather I was referring to many of the discussions we have here on NMB and elsewhere online. In regards to it being copper vs Yamagane I am relatively sure that if one wanted they could patinate copper to look like anything you want it to (if you spent the right amount of time). That deeper color can be achieved by performing multiple processes of what we did but time was a factor and we made some choices on it. 

 

Also yes the Chinese fakes are getting better. I have to wonder if part of the reason they are getting better is because we are "educating" them as to why their stuff looks fake. It is a scary world out there for collectors and will continue to get worse.

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In regards to it being copper vs Yamagane I am relatively sure that if one wanted they could patinate copper to look like anything you want it to (if you spent the right amount of time). That deeper color can be achieved by performing multiple processes of what we did but time was a factor and we made some choices on it. 

James,

 

you are right with that patina, of course. I have copper gutters that have patinated to a very deep brown. They look lovely, like a yamagane tsuba :glee:  

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Well, I have no problem admitting I was one of those who thought it old, although I was on my fourth beer and looking at it in a rather poorly lit bar room. (LOL) Be that as it may, it did look old and does bring up the important question about the ability to replicate old works along with the implications to students in this field and others. It's a good lesson in humility and observation, both well taken.

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